“Over the years, BlackBerry has amassed a giant portfolio of patents, but it hasn’t used them to sue others — until now,” Joe Mullin reports for Ars Technica. “BlackBerry has filed three patent infringement lawsuits in as many weeks. The struggling phone company’s offensive barrage began with a case filed against IP telephony company Avaya on July 27. Last week, BlackBerry filed two lawsuits against budget cell phone maker BLU’s products, alleging that BLU infringes a whopping 15 patents.”

“The dual lawsuits against BLU suggest that BlackBerry’s new turn toward patent licensing isn’t going to be a one-off event, but rather a more extended campaign,” Mullin reports. “In a May earnings call, BlackBerry CEO John Chen told investors he’s in a ‘patent licensing mode’ and is hoping to monetize his company’s 38,000 patents.”

“The new lawsuits also suggest that BlackBerry has patents it believes describe Android features, so don’t be surprised if more Android phones are in the crosshairs soon,” Mullin reports. “One of the two cases filed last week accuses user-interface features that are more about Android than they are about BLU. A small manufacturer like BLU could make for a good ‘test case’ against a maker of Android phones.”

It’s not clear if this fits the patent trolling definition. BlackBerry actually make things. They may well be using these patents themselves in their products. Meanwhile, patent trolls merely own patents and do nothing with them except use them as weapons in lawsuits in pursuit of money.